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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25491250">Lavender</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansos/pseuds/sansos'>sansos</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, One Shot, Post-Time Skip, Reader-Insert</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:14:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,338</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25491250</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansos/pseuds/sansos</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Every decision, every action, every step that you took served to distance you from your past. Yet you still clung on to the lavender bookmark that bound you back to it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kita Shinsuke &amp; Reader, Kita Shinsuke/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>239</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Lavender</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>An anonymous request for my request event on Tumblr: <br/>"for your event, may i request the word 'perennial' ? "</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was nothing but a high school crush.</p>
<p>A silly old high school crush that would hold no significance once you left the school grounds. A crush that would mean nothing once you walked past the school gates for your final time.</p>
<p>And yet, as you took what would have been your final step on the pavement of the front entrance, you were stopped. You were stopped by your classmate —the one who, by some stroke of luck— had sat directly in front of you throughout all three years of your high school career.</p>
<p>With a resolute smile, he had handed you a bookmark —a bookmark with a single pressed lavender sealed neatly against the paper, the soft purple of the petals standing out against the stark white of the sheet.</p>
<p>Hastily, you had spluttered out a quick word of thanks and had, for whatever reason you could not fathom even to this day, promptly ran back to the safety of your own home and far away from the unease of the unknown and the what-ifs.</p>
<p>You had moved out of your family home for college, having chosen to attend a university in Nagoya. It was a change of pace, but you liked it. Your friend circle was different, the food you ate was different, the commute was different —even the phone you used was different. And yet, the lavender bookmark —the one you had decided in the spur of the moment to bring along with you— stayed the same, retaining the same lavender scent as it had the day he had gifted it to you.</p>
<p>Graduation came quickly, and you soon found yourself in the bustling city of Tokyo working for a tech start-up. You sought out a change of pace: searching for a complete overhaul of your routine to start your life from a freshly blank slate.</p>
<p>Your company was small: there were only the five of you working to meet the demands of the million dollar investment bestowed upon your team. You shuffled between roles, bouncing from job description to job description just to maintain the equilibrium. It was difficult and often times overwhelming, having to always adapt to the change, but this was something you yourself wanted —it wasn’t up to you to complain.</p>
<p>Each rising of the sun brought along with it a completely different life. Different jobs, different clients, different break times —even the food you ate was different. You craved the thrill of it all —a different high every time. The thrill of being able to wake up each morning as a new person free from the shackles of the past.</p>
<p>You untucked the lavender bookmark from your planner, the faint smell of what must have been lavender oil permeating through your senses. No matter how much change had incorporated itself into your life, this would always be your one true constant —the relic of old that tied you back down to the earth and to who you were at your core.</p>
<p>There were times when you could have jumped onto the nearest train and headed home; headed back to your family, to your friends, to him. Though each time the familiar invite to a reunion pinged on your phone, you would always look down at the keyboard and envision yourself in an open field of lavenders standing next to him.</p>
<p>And so you would decline, time and time again, stating reasons of work commitments keeping you away from home, followed by empty words of “I wish I could be there too!” and “I’ll miss you” while making hollow unfulfilled promises of going the next time.</p>
<p>
  <em>Work.</em>
  
</p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p>Aside from the lavender bookmark, this was the other constant in your life —the hood of constant lies and deception that you pulled over the eyes of a past life. You didn’t understand why. The bookmark you knew: it was an anchor for you in the ever-changing world you lived in. The avoidance, you weren’t sure at all. A part of you missed your family and friends, and missed the view of the sky from the long road home from school after a tiring day —a view you almost always shared with <em>him</em>.</p>
<p>And sometimes you wondered if it was the fear of reliving in those very memories that kept you away. Was it the fear of revisiting the teasing remarks and the longing stares shared between the two of you that stood against you and your home? You’d like to think it wasn’t —after all, he was just a high school crush. You lived in the present, there was no use dwelling in the past.</p>
<p>You had developed a habit of letting fate decide lunch for you the day of. Whatever time you managed to run off on a break, you would frolic throughout the city scouring for new restaurants to try. You never went back a second day —there were no commitments, no routine, no attachments.</p>
<p>Today, fate had led you to a store with flower stands lined up neatly against the entrance. <em>It must be new</em>, you thought excitedly to yourself. <em>A new day, a new restaurant</em>. You tightened your hold on your planner, the bookmark safely tucked in-between the pages, as you walked up to the door and pulled the sliding door open</p>
<p>A tall man clad in a tight black shirt stood behind the counter, a matching black cap covering most of the black hair that was neatly tucked underneath. His hands worked to form handfuls of rice into perfectly geometrical triangles, each one the exact size and shape. At your arrival, he raised his head up, his grey-brown eyes meeting your (e/c) ones, a smile settling onto his lips as realization rippled across his face.</p>
<p>“(l/n)-senpai, nice to see you again,” he said as he took off his cap, putting down the onigiri he had been working on and wiping his hands on his apron.</p>
<p>You took a step back and snuck a peak at the stand menu siting upright outside the shop before walking back in and taking a seat by the bar counter in front of the man.</p>
<p>“Osamu-san, didn’t expect you to open up shop in Tokyo so soon,” you replied placing your bag onto the seat next to you, your planner laying atop. “Have you been well?”</p>
<p>Osamu nodded his head as he turned around to grab you a menu from the back counter. “I have. And you?”</p>
<p>“I’ve been well, to some extent.”</p>
<p>“That’s reassuring. Can I get you anything?”</p>
<p>You slid the menu back to him. “Surprise me,” you told him with a shrug and a grim smile, “whatever you recommend.”</p>
<p>“Fatty tuna? My brother likes that one,” Osamu suggested as he pivoted on his heel to return the menu back to its stack.</p>
<p>You tilted your head as you looked on in the man’s direction. Contrasting the all-black attire he had on was a purple flower sitting by the wall next to him, and while your mind wanted to focus on your old underclassman, your eyes instead found themselves trained to the floral arrangement.</p>
<p>“That’s a lavender, isn’t it?” You asked, pointing at the lone flower sitting in a purple vase on the back counter. “Why is there only one? I’d think that your flowers would all be outside with the rest of the congratulatory messages.”</p>
<p>Osamu pushed the plate with your order towards you and turned around to look at the vase himself. “This one’s a bit different. An old friend asked me to leave it out,” Osamu said with a knowing look in his eyes. “Mentioned that it was in case someone in the area found the shop,” he laughed when he saw that you had raised an eyebrow.</p>
<p>No, he was just a silly high school crush. You weren’t old friends.</p>
<p>You didn’t press on for more detail, and bid Osamu farewell, muttering obligatory words of congratulations and good luck to the storeowner as you departed to head back to your office once you had wordlessly finished and paid for your meal.</p>
<p>Life was constantly changing for you, and you liked it that way. You had let fate decide your meal from day to day, and yet, over the next few weeks, your feet would too often bring you to the entrance of Onigiri Miya. You had become a bit of a familiar face, with even the part-timers recognizing you and asking you if you were there for “the usual”. After so many years of change —of different scenery and of different people— it was refreshing to fall back into a pattern.</p>
<p>You looked over at the purple vase sitting behind Osamu. The single stem that had sat alone by itself had since acquired some company, with three stems now sitting in the vase happily together. The person leaving the flowers in the store probably came every other week, you figured. Not often enough to fill the vase with flowers, but not so rarely that there weren’t any at all.</p>
<p>Your mind drifted off to the person who had gifted you the bookmark. Was he in the area too? Did he work nearby as well? Was it all just wishful thinking?</p>
<p>“You sure look happy,” Osamu pointed out as he placed your order in front of you. You looked up, slightly surprised —it had been a while since someone had last said that to you.</p>
<p>You hummed in response, and nodded your head in agreement. “Lavenders are my favorite flowers,” you told him, your smile widening without your notice.</p>
<p>And in two weeks time, the lavenders doubled in amount. What used to be three turned into six, and two weeks after that, six had turned into a dozen, with Osamu switching the small purple vase for a large clear one instead.</p>
<p>You had grown accustomed to seeing the familiar sight in the store. The ever-present decorative piece that sat quietly on the back counter of Onigiri Miya, grounding you to reality amidst the whirlwind of change and chaos that your life had transformed into by your own hand. There was something about the constancy of the flowers that brought upon a sense of relief.</p>
<p>That was why it had been so disturbingly unsettling to you when you noticed the vase and the flowers gone one day. The clear vase filled with fresh water and amethyst coloured flowers had all but disappeared, having been replaced by a neatly organized stack of menus in its stead.</p>
<p>“The flowers, they’re not there anymore.”</p>
<p>Osamu looked over to the spot you pointed at and simply chuckled with a small shake of his head. “They decided that they wanted to deliver them personally today,” he said with a smile. “Said that it would be the proper way to go about doing it.”</p>
<p>Your hand fiddled with the bookmark peaking out from the planner you held in your hand, the remaining trace of the lavender oil from before suddenly the cause of your heart palpitations.</p>
<p>It couldn’t be, right? It couldn’t be him. He was just— </p>
<p>The door slid open and a man with a grey cardigan draped across his shoulderswalked in, carrying a large bouquet of purple flowers in his arms. He looked around, calm golden eyes surveying the area as if he was searching for something —no, someone. His eyes landed on you, and a smile quickly graced his elegant features.</p>
<p>“(f/n)-san, it’s been a while,” he greeted, his eyes twinkling under the light streaming in from the windows of the store.</p>
<p>You didn’t reply —you simply stared, because surely this must have been a dream, right? Surely this wasn’t real, right? He was nothing but a high school crush, a ghost of your past life. Yet, why did the very sight of him, from his neatly styled two-toned hair —his bangs were shorter than they were back in high school, you noticed— to the calmness and serenity that his eyes seemed to possess, make your heart skip a beat and your voice catch in your throat?</p>
<p>Osamu cleared his throat, reminding the two of you of his presence. “I’ll step out fer a bit to give ya some privacy,” he said as he shot a thumbs-up in your direction.</p>
<p>Kita nodded his head and proceeded to take a step closer to you, now facing you directly. He thrusted out the bouquet in his hands out towards you, enveloping you with the smell of peaceful tranquility.</p>
<p>"These are for you, (f/n)-san,” he smiled, his eyes searching through yours as if he was reaching into the abyss you had fallen into when you saw him to bring you back to reality. You reached out your arms and accepted the bouquet from his, staring down in admiration at the vibrant life infused in the flowers, reminding you of the days in that very meadow you had shared with the man many years ago.</p>
<p>“Lavenders?” You asked as you leaned in closer to the bouquet and allowed the gentle scent of the flowers to caress you in their hold. It was quite odd, you thought. The bookmark had been with you since Kita first gave it to you, and yet, rather than the longing and yearning that the scent of the lavender oil would always invoke, what flooded your mind now were feelings of warmth and happiness —of hope and for life.</p>
<p>Kita hummed in response and reached a hand out to you, patiently waiting with his palm facing the sky. You looked back up to meet his golden eyes, and with an encouraging nod from him, gingerly placed your palm atop his, the tips of your fingers perfectly aligned.</p>
<p>He curled his fingers to entwine his hand with yours and smiled —the same smile as the one on the day of your graduation ceremony; the smile that was filled with certainty and determination, with calmness and grace, and with love and purity. </p>
<p>“Just like the summer-blooming perennials, my devotion to you will forever be everlasting.”</p>
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